Jesus and the Bent-Over Woman

What we have here in the 13th chapter of Luke is a healing story. One of many. There are 25 different healing stories in the gospels. Now I know you've read and heard these stories of Jesus healing people many times. In some ways, they're all alike — a person with a physical or mental or spiritual defect comes to Jesus, and Jesus heals the person. It's as if the gospel writers want to take us by the hand and say to us, "Come along with us, let us show you what Jesus did. Look over there at that man; he was blind, and Jesus gave him back his sight. And here is a little boy who had a terrible fever; his father thought he was going to die, but Jesus healed him. And there goes the fellow whose mind was so darkened that he used to run around unclothed, cutting himself with stones. Look at him, he's been cured, made whole; he's been given back his life. Isn't Jesus amazing, wonderful?"

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Stories of Jesus healing people, wonderful stories, each one so similar, and yet each one also unique, one of a kind. For instance, this story about Jesus healing the bent-over woman.

It begins with the statement that Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. Which means that there were people either sitting or standing there listening to what he had to say. How large a crowd we aren't told, but remembering that more than 5,000 people had earlier assembled to hear him on the mountainside, we can surmise that the building was probably wall-to-wall with people.

So Jesus is teaching. And while he is teaching, he sees someone. "Well, of course," you say. "If he's looking at his listeners, he obviously sees them."

But no, I don't mean he sees in the sense of just seeing a person in front of him. I mean he notices this person. It's a woman, and Jesus notices her.

What does it mean to be noticed? Sometimes it's good to be noticed, isn't it? Sometimes you want to be noticed, like when you're in school and the teacher asks a question, and you know the answer, you're positive you know the answer, and you raise your hand, which is your way of saying, "I know the answer, teacher! Please call on me!" You want to be noticed.

Or maybe you're at the ball game, and the person operating the TV camera scans the crowd and the people around you all turn toward the camera. What do they do? They wave their hands. Why? I don't know, maybe it's just a human instinct to want to be noticed. "Don't look over there; look over here. Look at me. Pay attention to me." Maybe it's all a throwback to when we were very small and we were learning to do new things, like catch a ball or swing on a swing by ourselves, and we called to our parents, "Look, Mommy. Look, Daddy. Look at me!" It's seem to be born in us, this need to have someone whose attention we crave notice us, see us, affirm us, recognize that we are important, special, unique.